Getting himself to work on the monsters, to try and see whether he could find and recover their spell cores, had been a trial and a half. The qualms he faced when stabbing monsters translated directly to working on their dead bodies, since it wasn’t the killing itself that was the issue rather the feeling thereof. What had finally motivated was imaging a future in which he had to resort to begging for food and eventually ending up in a monster butchery.

Kent had toiled over the monster corpses outside for a long time. Seeing how his pools had grown he must have spent three to four hours on trying to extract cores. Emphasis on trying, even when he had gone through the better part of fifteen monster bodies, he hadn’t found a single spell core.

He didn’t know whether there were any special rules for dungeons, that might make it, so no cores formed, or maybe it was a peculiar trait of turrls to lack them. Or maybe it was just Kent’s lack of skill. There might also be a chance of him destroying the cores when fighting the monsters. They were supposedly rather fragile in their base forms, but he deemed it unlikely, he would have noticed that. He had been able to save some of the turrl saliva though. He had heard of it being sold as a luxury product so maybe it would grant him some financial stability in the upcoming days, should he be able to think of a way to hide his apparent ‘Exile’ status.

Before laying down in the cave to sleep he had noticed another peculiarity. Some of the blood and entrails had vanished over the course of his grueling work, another unexplained mechanic of dungeon monsters he hadn’t heard of before, it was nice though. It meant the smell of rotting monster remains wouldn’t assault him for the remainder in the dungeon.

Looking back, he still didn’t completely understand how he had been able to work the monsters. The work had been disgusting and even after taking a bath in the pond he still felt dirty. Even though his body and mind were both exhausted falling asleep just wouldn’t happen, so many memories and worries assaulted him now that his immediate survival wasn’t completely up in the air anymore. In a way life had been easier just a couple of days ago. His only worry back then surviving the next day.

After turning around on the cool pebbles for ages he turned towards the help of turrl saliva and drifted off into a dreamless night.

***

For the next couple of days, he hungered and slowly progressed through the levels. His free stat points from level six were invested into vitality, a stat he had promised himself to spend some point in. At level seven he spent one on mind, magic, and willpower each. The related skill point from level seven was invested into Mosquito from the Daggers tree. He had done a lot of considering but in the end had accepted that it was the most reasonable choice. He didn’t see a need of the extra power granted by Slippery Blade – it would most likely interact unfavorably with metallic extension – and Death by ten thousand Punctures would barely be effective with his current combat prowess.

And in the end, his choice had been a good one. For some reason there was a synergetic effect between the new skill Mosquito and Accelerate Metal. Whereas before when he could only apply the skills effect on metal in relative position to his naval he was now able to accelerate daggers away from his hands as well. That had increased his ability of hitting turrls with flying knives to almost perfect efficiency. With a bit of luck, he was even able to hit moving targets.

Of course, that wasn’t the only benefit that Mosquito brought with it. He felt more comfortable in his movements during combat, and it gave him some combat intuition he wouldn’t have had access to otherwise. The forms and movements it presented in his mind were interesting and there were even a couple that helped with combat against smaller opponents.

As he approached further to the other side of the pond the density of turrls increased further but still the highest level he had seen was level fifteen. From what he had been told he knew that a dungeons level was usually only an approximate rating for how strong enemies in the dungeon were going to be.

That caused a good deal of uncertainty in him. Did that mean turrls were stronger than their level indicated or was there a hidden danger he wasn’t aware off. Turrls themselves weren’t a strong enemy when you only encountered a single one and as long as you weren’t bitten, so it was probably the second – but he hadn’t found anything of the sort.

As he fought, took breaks, and slaughtered himself through the levels all his skills grew, and confidence in getting out of the dungeon skyrocketed.

At level eight and nine he had invested his points into magic and willpower, to increase his most effective skill even further.

As he wanted to get the third specialization in Metallic Insight, he had to choose from Analyze Metal and Metallic Presence. The choice had been obvious. The former skill didn’t offer anything he could use right now, maybe ever. Metallic Presence had the potential to be useful around other humans, identify hidden weapons, coin, and could potentially help with making money by locating ores and such. Especially if the range grew per rank.

The best part, which he had hoped for, about the skill had been that it leveled without him having to spend resources on it. Each hour the skill grew by one experience when it send out its pulse of discovery. Mosquito was similar in that regard, leveling not through stamina expenditure, but competency displayed in the forms it instructed him in.

At some point halfway through level nine he received another title, one he felt justified in getting.

New Notification Log Entries:

You have gained the title Born in Carnage

Born in Carnage – You have slayed over one hundred monsters of a greater evolutionary milestone before evolving yourself. Increases each Stat by 20%. May unlock skills in skill trees related to title gain.

Most people would never be able to kill this many higher evolved monsters before evolving. Kent was certain that his sister had told him of entirely skipping level eight when she killed a level seventeen drop pig, that had been trapped. And there really wasn’t a point in postponing the evolution. Sure, people could sit at the edge to level ten for ages and try to farm monsters of a higher evolution, but what was the point. Then again, most people were traited, so he really was only guessing. Getting the evolution would make everything easier though, that he knew.

He hadn’t found any of the potentially new skills yet, but they promised to be good by the sheer power of the title’s stat bonus. Combatant had unlocked over a hundred skills and given ten percent to each stat. Basic skills admittedly, but since he hadn’t found a single skill yet, he deemed the ones to be unlocked of the core tier at least, and more powerful than what combatant unlocked.

Kent Larsson [Level 9] [75%]

Pools:

Health: 90/101

Health Reg: 22 – 36 /d

Stamina: 10/172

Stamina Reg: 45 – 75 /d

Mana: 28/96

Mana Reg: 96 – 157 /d

Stats (0 Free Stat points):

Vitality 20

Toughness 12

Endurance 29

Strength 25

Agility 23

Senses 13

Mind 14

Magic 45

Willpower 91

Regeneration 15

Skills (0 Free Skill Points):

Accelerate Metal (4/10) (52/200 Exp.)

Penetrate (4/10) (8/200 Exp.)

Metallic Affinity (2/10) (52/100 Exp.)

Metal Extension (1/10) (45/50 Exp.)

Mosquito (2/10) (7/100 Exp.)

Metallic Presence (1/10) (18/50 Exp.)

His hopes for being able to dagger fight at a distance were unfulfilled yet. It currently seemed as though you were required to have Rotate Metal in addition to apply the moves the kata taught. That didn’t mean he couldn’t use the daggers effectively, quite the opposite. Most turrls were dead after a single hit.

He’d get there soon. It wasn’t far to the evolution that level ten brought with it.

He would just have to rest once more, to refill his pools to an acceptable degree. In that regard, he wasn’t happy with all his choices over the last few days.

What he regretted the most so far was Metallic Presence. The benefits and downsides making it hard to properly quantify as good or bad, it was firmly in the gray zone, but there wasn’t an alternative he would have preferred so he didn’t hate his choice.

The skill itself had been more useful than expected on the couple of occasions when it had warned him of a turrls in the trees – a surprising functionality to say the least. The resolution of the skill was quite poor, projecting a diffuse cloud of potential around metal deposits in his head. The best part, a welcome surprise, it conjured such a cloud in his mind for turrls as well. The implications were manyfold. Turrls had metal in their bodies and so did a whole bunch of other stuff. Trees, and basically everything else in the dungeon didn’t qualify, but the stones around the cave were all shrouded by the metal detecting cloud, so was he.

While this application seemed to have a lot of use-cases the downside had become apparent as Kent went to sleep – helped by the turrl venom. After the effects of the venom had passed the skill would wake him with a ping of his surrounding metal every hour, like a clockwork. And it would probably get worse once the skill leveled up. To help his sleeplessness his consumption of turrl saliva had rapidly grown, but he found it justified by the amount his regeneration increased during sleep.

After taking a last glance over his resources he drifted to sleep once again, his belly filled with the last provision he had and a sip of turrl salive. Tomorrow he would have to find the boss and complete the dungeon, or slowly starve if he didn’t manage.

***

Given by his previous monster encounters, the dungeon layout, and the monster level gradient he had a pretty good idea of where he would find his final opponent. The further away he went from the entrance zone the higher the level would be, so it was only logical for the boss to be at the opposite side.

As he could see the opposite waterfront from his cave entrance, which was rather monsterless, he decided to move along the outskirts of the dungeon, a tactic he had used almost exclusively the last couple days. Turrls couldn’t ambush or surprise him from half of the sides, and it gave him the emergency respite of hiding in the spatially compressed boundary-region.

His movements happened fast and efficiently. His already strong physique had grown in the last week by exceptional strides akin to growing out of puberty and into adulthood again.

He slowed down his pace as he judged his position to be roughly opposite – or at least forty percent – of his starting point and began observing his surroundings for any kind of significant markings. Anything would stand out between the constant sameness of the forest around the pond. The same tree over and over again. The same grass and moss. The same stones overgrown by lichens. The same occasional root disrupting the grounds uniformity. The same rare glint in the air…

Wait, he took in a deep slow breath. That glint is new.

Whatever this was, it was illuminated by the dungeons illusory sun. Or maybe it was just a trick of the light. It was worth checking out either way.

Carefully, straining his senses of hearing and sight to the limit he looked for movement or other discolorations in the rough region.

Slowly he approached the thin strand of reflective light in the air, tensioned between the trees. The strand turned out to be something physical instead of just a trick of the light. And that wasn’t all. He moved around it, trying to inspect the strand and the attachments to the trees on both sides. Looking for a trap mechanism but found nothing. He found nothing that gave away its functionality, and so out of curiosity he touched it, trying to figure out what it was. He was almost hoping for it to be a sort of alert system for the boss, or maybe a tripwire.

He readied himself and disturbed the string.

Contrary to his expectations began sticking to his skin, similarly to the silk of a spider but with a more viscous consistence.

What are the odds, that the strings are the trap? He hadn’t even considered the most obvious solution, that it wasn’t a tripwire, but rather a more turrl specific trap. Given that this was a somniferous dungeon he didn’t have to think twice to figure out that he was in trouble now. The likelihood of those strings being spiked with venom that could take effect through the skin was high, and he had no doubt that the boss had extra abilities over the other monsters in the dungeon so it wasn’t far fetched that he would be affected merely through external application.

With all the speed he could manage he sprinted back to the cave, to ensure the highest amount of safety for his incoming nap. As he was doing so, his thoughts oddly didn’t deteriorate, rather he felt fairly unaffected. Realizing this, he decided to be efficient about his situation and use a bit of the mana he would have as excess. He sent shivs ahead of him, hurrying them along with Accelerate Metal, because he was bound to regenerate mana once the poison set in.

When he arrived at the cave, he felt a little silly as the venom hadn’t had any visible effect. He wasn’t tired whatsoever. No mental fatigue and nothing…

He realized that his entire right arm, his fingers especially, was asleep, and as he observed the effect was slowly spreading.

Panic didn’t help much, and neither did the health potion Kent gulped down. It took some time but eventually all his senses left him, and his consciousness was no more.

***

This time around Kent would be smarter. He moved out, tracked back to where he had found the strand of venom, but the area was now covered in a figurative mess of similar strings, visible to the naked eye, without the reflection of sunlight.

Seems like the boss isn’t the smartest around, Kent noted.

He threaded through the forest, skirting around trees all the while fanning a branch in front of his face to displace other potential traps.

Eventually he found the boss. Observation and his gut feeling told him that was not ready yet, he would give it a few more days.

Somniferous Hybrid Spreader – Level 20 – Dungeon Boss

A turrl of a size trumping everything else he had seen so far. Even larger than the monster he had seen outside the dungeon and with different coloring.

Its size however was a relief. Measuring at least half Kent’s height and the corresponding proportions of a squirrel, would surely not allow it to climb trees.

The level was intimidating, the name could partially be explained by the strings it had all around its home, where ‘hybrid’ came from was a mystery. It was a boss, and he was going to fight it and win.

The only question was when. Because in his last couple of fights earlier he had gained a new notification.

You have reached level ten! One stat point has been allocated to each of your stats.

Start Class up?

Retreating and resting to see the boss’s reaction to his actions of destroying dozens of strands would be the first item on the list.